Last week, I had a delightful experience that made me giddier than my wedding day. I was invited to join biologists and researchers as they banded burrowing owlets. Tiny, downy, newly hatched baby owls? Count me in!

I hooked him and mass chaos ensued. AJ yelled “fish on!” and then began trying to wrangle me into doing what he said so I wouldn’t lose the fish. “Hold your pole this way, now lift up. Ahh, that’s a nice fish! Reel slowly.”

One of our PTT-equipped owls managed to evade prairie falcons, badgers and weasels and began her fall journey southward from Cisco, Utah on October 3. On October 8, she was on the edge of Grand Gulch in San Juan County, and by October 14, she’d found her way to…

The over-arching goal of the research is to restore native fish species, including Bonneville cutthroat trout, to fire-affected streams in the Tushar Mountains. However, the watersheds of these remote 12,000+ foot peaks do not provide data easily.

One particular goat that some have dubbed “Gruff” (he has a broken horn) can often be seen with the group of lively goats. Additionally, several “kids” or juvenile mountain goats have been seen playing and jumping among the rocks, seemingly unaware of their precarious surroundings.

I harvested five chukars in less than two hours! This hunt will forever be seared in my memory. I have a general philosophy that life is about the happy memories we make. My hunting companions performed their tasks flawlessly, and I shot as good as I ever have.

When I first visited the burned area it looked like a bulldozer had gone down the middle of the stream. It was completely full of gravel. There were no fish. There were no pools. This was my first taste of what we were dealing with.

Oh, and ravens will eat pretty much anything: from small, already-dead mammals to bird eggs and fruits. I’m with Poe in finding these birds a little on the creepy side. Their deep, gurgling croak is enough to raise the hair on my arms.